The Inpatient Rehab Unit at Southern Ohio Medical Center has once again gained accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). The in-depth review is conducted once every three years and SOMC has now achieved accreditation for five consecutive terms.

“We’re very pleased to maintain this recognition,” Regina Keller, nurse manager of the Inpatient Rehab Unit at SOMC, said. “The survey is a very tedious process and to learn that our department is able to meet the standards that are set by CARF year after year shows how high our dedication to quality patient care truly is.”

CARF is a nationwide program, created to help organizations develop and maintain standards that improve the value and responsiveness of programs and services delivered to rehabilitation patients.

To be accredited by CARF, an organization must satisfy each of the CARF Accreditation Conditions and demonstrate through a site survey that it clearly meets those established standards. The CARF review is a two-day process, featuring visits from both administrative and program surveyors.

“The surveyors review processes used throughout our unit, including the scope of services we provided, our interdisciplinary teams created for performance improvement and our safety measures and standards,” Belinda Diles, program director of the Inpatient Rehab Unit, said.

This year the surveyors identified eleven strengths of the unit, emphasizing the department’s dedication to creating and maintaining a safe environment for both staff members and their patients. Five opportunities for improvement also were listed to help the unit continue to improve for the future.

“New standards come out every year so we’re constantly trying to make our department the best it can be,” Keller said. “We have to be in compliance with the standards at all times, not just during survey years, and we hope our patients feel confident in knowing that we are providing them the best rehab care in our area.”

Did you ever misplace a set of keys or your TV remote? Imagine the challenge of tracking hundreds of pieces of equipment in a large organization, such as a hospital.

The Biomedical Engineering Department of Southern Ohio Medical Center has deployed a system to locate and track more than 1,600 pieces of medical equipment. The staff can instantly see them on a computer screen map, and track them as they move.

“Previously there were times when I had to send staff out for an hour or two to do preventitive maintenance,” Greg Malone, supervisor of Biomedical Engineering, says. “Now they can walk over to the computer. What once took hours takes seconds.”

With the system, known as Radianse, small tags on each item send a signal to 363 receivers throughout the hospital, which then give the information to the engineers. Malone says the Radianse system can determine which room a piece of equipment is in with great accuracy.

The system provides easier equipment management, improved recall management, and better use of limited supplies of critical equipment, Malone says.

Employees of Southern Ohio Medical Center, as well as visitors and patients, participated in a recent glove and mitten drive for the needy. More than 226 pairs of gloves and mittens, as well as $20 in anonymous donations, were collected. Members of the SOMC Heart Care Unit helped coordinate the drive and are shown (l-r): Tina Moore, RN, CCRN; Missy Carver, RN; Paul Rase, RN, CCRN; Robin Blackburn, MTCNA; Sarah Betten, RN, BSN.

Co-sponsored by the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities in conjunction with the American Association for Cancer Research, this conference attracted more than 600 attendees including scientists, health professionals from academia, industry, government and the community. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the latest finding and to stimulate the development of new research in cancer health disparities.

At the plenary session on disparities in cancer survivorship, Gilliland shared insight about cancer survivorship issues in the Appalachian community through her “Keeping the Faith: Surviving Cancer in Appalachia” presentation.

Gilliland was asked to present because of her personal experience as a cancer survivor, along with her experience working with cancer survivors at SOMC and in the community. Since being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989, she has been a strong advocate for breast health as a Reach to Recovery volunteer, Special Touch instructor, Relay for Life committee member, and an American Cancer Society Board member.

In 1994, Ms. Gilliland became a charter member and has continuously served on the Fight Cancer, Save Lives Coalition, a community-based coalition formed by the Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer.

Stacey Stevens, RN, CDE, has received her certification from the National Certification Board for Diabetes Educators as a Certified Diabetes Educator.

Stevens has been with SOMC for 10 years and has been the Diabetes Education Coordinator for the past fiveyears. She received her associate’s degree in Nursing from Shawnee State University. A native of Scioto County, she resides in Lucasville with her husband, Jerry, and their two children.

Achieving certification status demonstrates to people with diabetes and employers that the health care professional possesses distinct and specialized knowledge, thereby promoting quality of care for people with diabetes.

For more information about SOMC Diabetes Education, contact Stevens at (740) 356-8670 or by email at stevenss@somc.org.

Southern Ohio Medical Center recently donated $3,000 to the South Central Ohio Educational Service Center. The money will support several educational programs, including the Scioto County Science Day, Scioto County High School Honors, Music Festival, Pre-College, summer programs and the Scioto County High School Art show. Shown are (from left) Brett Justice, Personnel director at the center, Sharee Price, Gifted Services coordinator, and Jennifer Schackart, Public Relations specialist at SOMC.

“Do everything you can do and learn everything you can learn,” Dr. William Esham says. “That’s what I tell young doctors and young people in general.” When Dr. “Bill” Esham hangs up his lab coat at the end of December, he will retire from a decades-long urology practice helping thousands of people in the Portsmouth area and surrounding counties. The advice he now gives worked well for him starting out as a young physician in the early ‘70s.

A son of long-time Vanceburg, Ky., physician Elwood Esham and his wife, Ruth, Bill spent the last part of high school and his college years in private religious schools (“It was my mother’s last attempt to set me straight,” he jokes). He began his medical career after undergraduate studies at Andrews University in Michigan and medical school at the University of Louisville. He served his country as a U.S. Coast Guard Flight Surgeon before practicing in Alabama, where he worked as a family doctor. Burning the midnight oil, he did everything, including delivering babies, and followed his own advice to do as much as he could and learn as much as he could.

Along the way, he also married a young nurse, Marika, originally from Austria, and they would have two children. “I got a ‘67 Mustang convertible a few weeks before we got married,” he jokes. “I told her I’d keep her as long as I had the car.”

His older brother, Richard, was also a practicing physician in Alabama, but Bill decided to return to his roots, and joined the practice in Vanceburg with his father’s successor, Dr. Cliff Jennings. He worked in general practice in his hometown until 1976, when he happened to be looking at specialty practice possibilities while talking with some of his former classmates at the Kentucky Medical Association in Louisville.

“I had a real interest in orthopedics,” he admits, “but in Louisville I was encouraged to apply for an opening there in a urology program. It was a small staff, but several of the people had been classmates or associates of mine from my medical school days and they knew my work ethic.”

Four years later he returned to the Portsmouth area, joined the practice of local urologists Don Appleton and John Walker, and began a 27-year span of caring for the urology needs of area residents. While brother Richard still practices in Alabama, his brother George is also a practicing physician at Southern Ohio Medical Center in Portsmouth. His sister, Faith Esham, is a world-famous operatic soprano and an adjunct professor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, New Jersey. Their mother, Ruth, is still a resident of the area.

Over the years Bill has seen many new approaches and advances in his field. “There have been many refinements,” he says. “Probably the most significant thing was the development of shock wave lithotripsy, in which kidney stones can be shattered non-surgically. Prior to that, we had to cut the patient open to get stones out.”

He cites surgical refinements such as laparoscopic nephrectomy (kidney removal) and endoscopic improvements as critically important, in which smaller, less invasive wounds are needed to perform operations.

“We see a lot more prostate cancer now because we have much better ways to detect it early,” he says. “The difference now is, when I started practice, 75 percent of prostate patients in my office had inoperable cancer. Now 90 percent of prostate patients have treatable conditions because of earlier detection.”

When not caring for others, Bill has found time for his love of the outdoors through fishing, golf, farming and hunting. While plenty of photographs and some impressive trophies show his achievements, the centerpiece of his outdoor experiences is a seven-foot Alaskan grizzly now posed and mounted on a rock in his office. She brings more than a few wide eyes among visitors.

Today Bill and Marika’s children, Kristina and Bill E., are a pediatrician and a cardiac anesthesiologist, respectively, and he has two granddaughters. He doesn’t plan to slow down when his practice closes, looking forward to his traditional outdoor interests and possibly a few new ones.

“I want to thank everyone for trusting me to care for them over the years,” he says. “It has been the greatest honor, to be entrusted to help people, and I’ve made many friends and close colleagues along this journey.”

Registered nurses Betsy Marsh, BSN, CEN, EMT-P, Luann Webb, EMT-B and Cathy Clark, CEN, EMT-P (pictured l to r), all of the Southern Ohio Medical Center Emergency Department, recently gained certification after successfully completing the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners adult/adolescent (SANE-A) certification exam. The SANE program, created by the International Association of Forensic Nurses, provides individualized, professional and forensic care to sexual assault survivors. Nurses with SANE-A certification may also serve as expert consultants and witnesses in support of those who may have been sexually assaulted. Nurses of Emergency Services at SOMC have been a part of the program since 2001.

About 400 people attended the annual SOMC Hospice Celebration of Life Dec. 2 at the SOMC Friends Center honoring those terminally ill patients who died in the past year who had been cared for in the program. Candles were lit on the stage of the Friends Center honoring the patients. SOMC Hospice is part of Southern Ohio Medical Center and provides services and support for the terminally ill and their loved ones.